800 candidates and six finalists for the 2024 New Artists Award

Alice dos Reis (b. 1995, Lisbon) is a visual artist and filmmaker. She has exhibited, solo and in group, at the Serralves Museum for Contemporary Art (Porto), Canal Projects (NYC), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Galerie d’Italia (Turin), EYE Film Museum (Amsterdam) Kunsthalle Lissabon (Lisbon), Lisbon Municipal Galleries and Porto Municipal gallery, among others. Her films have been shown in various international film festivals such as Sheffield DocFest, IndieLisboa IFF, DocLisboa IFF and Curtas Vila do Conde IFF. In 2019, she won the Novo Banco Revelation prize for young artists, and in 2018, she won the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize. Recently, Alice was a recipient of Foundation Botin Visual Arts Grants (2022-2023), and previously, the Mondriaan Fonds Stipend for Young Artists (2020-2021). She has a Masters in Fine Art by the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and is currently pursuing a PhD at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She also co-runs Pântano Books, an independent poetry press.

Evy Jokhova (EE/UK/RU) lives and works in Lisbon. Jokhova is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice engages with dialogue and relationships between social anthropology, architecture, philosophy and art. Working with drawing, sculpture, installation, sound, film and performance, she aims to bridge gaps between these fields and their inherent hierarchical structures. Holding an MA in Fine Art, Royal College of Art (2011), and an MA in Political Communications, Goldsmiths College (2013), Jokhova has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Arts Council Individual Grants Award (2018), the Royal Academy Schools Fellowship (2016-19), the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award (2017-18), Wien Kultur Förderung (2017) and Amsterdam Fonds voor Kultur (2018). Her residencies include Yarat Contemporary Art Space (2018), Belvedere Museum Vienna (2017), BijlmAIR Amsterdam (2017), Villa Lena (2017), Nida Art Colony (2017) and Florence Trust (2008-09), among others. Her solo exhibitions include: Três Cores: Sombra, curated by Filipa Oliveira, Galeria Municipal de Arte, Almada (2023); Three Colours: Green, 3+1 Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon (2022); How to live together, CBK Zuidoost (Amsterdam, 2018); The Shape of Ritual, a project commissioned by Belvedere Museum (Vienna 2017); Towering in the conditions of fragments, Passen-gers (London 2017); Staccato, Marcelle Joseph Projects (London 2016). Recent group exhibitions she has participated in include: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, curated by Linda Kaljundi, Eha Komissarov, Ulrike Plath, Bart Pushaw and Tiiu Saadoja, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn (2023); Ponto d’Orvalho, curated by Joana Horta, Leonor Carrilho and Sergio Hydalgo, (Freixo de Meio, Alentejo 2021); WOTRUBA. Himmelwärts, curated by Gabrielle Stöger-Spevak, Belvedere Museum (Vienna, 2021); Art in the Plague Year, curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov and Rita Souther, UCR California Museum of Photography, (California, 2021); On Photographic Beings, Latvian National Museum (Riga 2020); Boundary Layers, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, (Baku 2019); Prevent this Tragedy, Dateagle / Vongoetz Art (London 2018); Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, Better Living: Tenderflix film festival, The Horse Hospital (London 2017), among others. Since 2014 the artist has run Allotment – a collaborative research project that explores social relationships and cultural politics through food. Jokhova’s work is held in the public collections of the British Government Art Collection, UK; Lafayette College Library, USA; Royal College of Art, UK; and Royal Shakespeare Company, UK.

Francisco Trêpa (b. 1995, Lisbon) is a Portuguese artist and lives in Lisbon. He began his artistic education in secondary school at the António Arroio School of Arts, where he specialised in ceramics in 2013. In 2017 he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon and in 2022 he completed a Master's degree in Multimedia Arts at the same institution, where he developed his research dissertation and the project Living Screen, a display of live animals in an exhibition context under the guidance of João Onofre and Maria João Gamito. Trêpa has exhibited in Portugal and abroad since 2015. His solo exhibitions include: Flor Cadáver, curated by Ana Cristina Cachola, Galeria Foco, Lisbon (2024); Hiperderme, curated by Sofia Marçal, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Lisbon (2022); The elephant got in the room and never left, Duplex Air, Lisbon (2021). Group exhibitions he has participated in include: Só porque foi, e voou, curated by the students of the Masters course in Curatorial Studies of the College of Arts, Coimbra University, produced in collaboration with Millenium BCP Foundation, Umbigo LAB, and MNAC – Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (2023); Gémeos Falsos, curated by Mercedes Vidal-Abarca and Diogo Ramalho, Parceria Córtex Frontal, Appleton Square, Lisbon (2023); Caring is Sharing 2.0, curated by Francisco Trêpa, Arbag, Lisbon (2023); Plants, as far as I know, are still bending towards the light, Arco Lisboa Contemporary Art Fair, Opening section with Galeria Foco, selection by Chus Martinez and Luiza Teixeira de Freitas (2023); Motobody. zip curated by Eva Slaba, Galeria Foco, Lisbon (2023); 22nd Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira (2022); Carpe Diem Young Art Award | Millenium BCP Foundation, Lisbon (2022); The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back, SWAB Art Fair with Duplex Air, Barcelona (2021); Voo Duplo, Galeria Diferença, Lisbon (2021); XXXIV Fidem Belgium Congress of Art-Medals, Gent (2016); First edition of the Paula Rego Art Prize, Casa das Histórias, Cascais, 2016; New Ideas in Medallic Sculpture, Rack and Hamper Gallery, New York, USA (2024). In 2022 he won the Carpe Diem Young Art Award | Millenium BCP Foundation. His work is included in private collections in Portugal and abroad. Trêpa has participated in projects and residencies, and in 2022 he started his curatorial project Caring is Sharing.

Inês Brites (b. 1992, Coimbra) lives and works in Lisbon. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon and also studied at KASK Ghent, Belgium. She was recently in residence at Artistes en Résidence in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Since 2015, she has participated in various projects and exhibitions, including the solo exhibitions: teardrop-star, at 3+1 Arte Contemporânea (2024); interroguei os espíritos dos corredores, curated by Joana Leão, at Livraria ZDB (2023); Com Licença, O Armário Móvel, curated by Benedita Pestana, Saco Azul (2022); and There’s More Water Entering the Soil at 3+1 Arte Contemporânea (2021). Of the group exhibitions and duos, she highlights the spaces where her works have been exhibited: Monitor Rome, P28 - Pavilhão 31, MNAC, vaga, Rua das Gaivotas 6, Casa Carlucci, SNBA, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas, Galeria Liminare, Plataforma Revólver, G39 Cardiff, O Stand Project, Las Palmas Project, DuplexAIR, Azan studio, Galeria FOCO. She also founded the Ciclo de Amizades project (2019-2022), which features partnership exhibitions in her own studio, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Maja Escher (1990, Santiago do Cacém) lives and works between Lisbon and Monte Novo da Horta dos Colmeeiros. Her artistic practice has a collective and hybrid dimension in which drawings, found objects, collaborative practices and fieldwork methods are part of the artist’s process to develop her site-specific installations and research-oriented projects. Clay, pieces of cane, rope, stones, vegetables and other elements found or offered to her during research fieldwork are often combined with riddles, sayings and songs, creating a tension between spirituality and science, magic and technology. In her practice, Escher cultivates a deep observation of ecosystems and ancestral knowledge connected to the land and its primordial elements. In 2016, the artist began a research project on water and rain, thinking of an alliance between popular wisdom/traditional knowledge (stories, songs, sayings and riddles) and scientific knowledge in a search for information to build a rain machine. The rain machine would in itself be a device for changing the mechanistic paradigm to an ecological one. More recent works deal with the complexity of the ecological, economic and social relationships of the Mira river basin in her home region, southwest Alentejo. Escher cultivates a deep observation of ecosystems, local technologies, ecological knowledge, ancestral cultural practices and mythologies transmitted in the form of songs or stories.

Sara Chang Yan (Lisbon, 1982) lives and works between Lisbon and the Azores. Sara graduated in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, and studied drawing at Ar.Co – Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual. In 2015, she was awarded the Visual Arts Prize for Young Creators, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2016, she was selected to participate in the Open Sessions 2016-2017 at The Drawing Center in New York. In 2024, Galeria Madragoa received the Focus Stand Prize for the presentation of Sara Chang Yan's work at Frieze New York. Her solo exhibitions include: Em Quietude a Sentir o Espaço, Arquipélago, Ribeira Grande (2023); Lightmotif, LaBF15, Lyon (2022); Estar em P, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2022); Sem Pressa de Chegar, Galeria Boavista, Lisbon (2019); Um Plano Tangível e Infinito, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2018); Escuto o Silêncio, Fala Inteiro e com Precisão, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2016). Group exhibitions in which she has participated include: Do delicado trabalho da agulha, Museu Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Amarante (2023); Tisanas. Infusões para tempos próximos, Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, Évora (2022); A Failed Entertainment #8, De Porta a Porta da Ermida, Lisbon (2021); Mais Nada se Move em Cima do Papel, Centro Artes, Águeda (2020); Campo de Visão, Torreão Nascente Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon (2018); Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions, The Drawing Center New York (2017).